IP Address Management and the Cloud is a topic that requires solution architecture for every cloud deployment. While Cisco IA for Cloud has a basic in-built IPAM system out of the box, often times we find customers need one of the worlds highest scale IPAM solutions. Cisco’s Prime Network Registrar is one such product in this category.

Cisco Intelligent Automation for Cloud (IAC) is a cloud management platform for Enterprise IT or Service Providers to build cloud services, such as IaaS. You can learn more about it here. The IAC solution supports a customer’s cloud journey by providing a solution that is extensible, scalable and easy to use in order to help them reduce the operation costs, optimize their resource utilization and efficiency.

One of the areas that are critical to customer’s infrastructure growth is IP Address Management (IPAM.) This is especially critical to large enterprise or service providers who need a scalable and extensible IPAM solution. Cisco Prime IPAM is the solution that provides strong IPAM management capability as described in Jamie Lerner’s blog. With these two best of breed products both coming from Cisco and both aiming to give customers scalable management solutions, it makes perfect sense to build integration between the two products. I would like to take this opportunity to introduce an integration recently made available by our engineering team to integrate CIAC and Cisco Prime IPAM. This integration will be made available to customers as part of the latest release of IAC, 3.1.1.

To explain what we have done, the following figure shows the high level end-to-end use case:

In this use case, it starts with a user ordering a virtual machine from a cloud built with Cisco IAC. This order is handled through the Cisco Cloud Portal (CCP) and Cisco Process Orchestrator (CPO). In the case where a customer has Cisco Prime IPAM, IAC will obtain an IP Address from the Cisco Prime IPAM. Before IAC invokes the API to acquire an IP address, the Prime IPAM shows the first available IP address is 192.168.10.9, as shown in the following figure:

The transition to IPv6 presents a complex technical challenge, and the business risks for not doing it right are potentially significant, in terms of impact on customer retention and growth, new business models, and competitive edge.

In this third installation of the series, Kelly Ahuja of Cisco and Ray Mota of ACG focus on Service Provider strategies for the transition to IPv6. As Kelly mentions, the Cisco Carrier-Grade IPv6 Solution (CGv6) is designed to help address both technical and business challenges associated with the transition. The Cisco CGv6 portfolio of IPv6 solutions enables service providers to:

Prepare for the smooth, incremental transition to IPv6 services that are interoperable with IPv4

Prosper through accelerated subscriber, device, and service growth that are enabled by the efficiencies that IPv6 can deliver

It’s important to emphasize the word solution. CGv6 solution is not just a line card, or a network appliance, or a software feature. Unlike other companies Cisco has the experience and expertise to help network operators realize the promise of IPv6 by offering full Life Cycle Services Support. This is especially important as not all operators have experience in IPv6 or access to this expertise. Cisco can provide the people, processes and tools to ensure a seamless transition. Some of the capabilities our advanced services team provides include:

With the growth in connected devices and the imminent transition from IPv4 to IPv6, managing IP address has become increasingly critical and complex. Organizations can no longer rely on spreadsheets to track IP address allocations. What is required is the ability to discover IP addresses and proactively manage their allocation, both to optimize IPv4 addresses and plan for the move to IPv6. Cisco Prime Network Registrar provides manageability, flexibility, control and visibility into the network – to simplify IP address management and ease the transition to IPv6.

We are showing a preview of Cisco Prime Network Registrar at Cisco Live. Please visit us in both the Enterprisebooth (Booth # 1349) and in Service Provider booth (Booth # 1183) to learn about the new capabilities of this new solution. Both booths will be running a limited demo of Cisco Prime Network Registrar to highlight some of the great new IPAM functionality.

Join us Wednesday for a session on Network Registrar including a customer case study from IBBS. IBBS have used Network Registrar to help build a managed services business that supports over 250 service providers.

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